New year, new team…right?
Okay, maybe not. The 29th place Ottawa Senators hit the ice for the first time in 2018 as they take on the Detroit Red Wings.
Tonight kicks off a stretch of five games in eight days for the Senators as they try to bounce back after another embarrassing home ice loss to close out 2017. This upcoming week has the potential to be a grueling one for the Senators.
After tonight’s game against the Red Wings, they play a weekend back to back with two tough teams coming to town. First they host the San Jose Sharks, who sit 3rd in the Pacific and have been on a pretty good run lately and then Nikita Kucherov and the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the CTC.
Then they get a couple days off before another back to back against the Blackhawks and Maple Leafs.
If the Senators can’t find another level to their game, it could get pretty ugly.
Guy Boucher had his team on the ice for practice yesterday and made an interesting change in their approach.
Marc Crawford has taken over responsibility for the power play and Martin Raymond is now working with the penalty kill. Making a change like that mid-season is pretty rare and is a clear acknowledgement from Boucher that what they’re doing on special teams clearly isn’t working.
#Sens Head Coach Guy Boucher updates the media on his line up before the team heads to Detroit to take on the Red Wings. pic.twitter.com/biwCfXH3hj
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) January 2, 2018
Crawford (and Boucher?) made one immediate change on the power play, moving Thomas Chabot up to the first unit with Erik Karlsson. This is something they have been reluctant to do but it sort of seems like a no-brainer. Will be interesting to see how those two look together tonight.
Nick Paul was demoted to Belleville earlier this week to make room for Gabriel Dumont. Here’s how the Senators are expected to line up for this one.
Dzingel-Brassard-Stone
Hoffman-Duchene-Ryan
Pyatt-Chlapik-Pageau
Dumont-Thompson-Burrows
Oduya-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Ceci
Claesson-Chabot
Craig Anderson gets the start for Ottawa. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
-If you’re getting a horrible sinking feeling about a potential Mike Hoffman deal, you aren’t the only one. Contending teams are circling, eager to land an elite goal scorer on a team-friendly deal and at the same time, it seems like the organization may not quite realize what they have in Hoffman. Dorion would love to recoup the first round pick he gave up in the Duchene deal but it seems like the real driving force behind this deal is short-term cash savings for the Owner. Precarious position to be dealing from. St. Louis is the team that has shown the most interest to date but Dorion indicated that no substantial offers have been made to this point.
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 |
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|---|---|---|
| Record | 12-17-8 (32 pts) | 15-16-7 (37 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.62 (28th) | 2.66 (26th) |
| Goals Against | 3.32 (29th) | 3.11 (22nd) |
| Power Play | 15.9% (25th) | 20.2% (12th) |
| Penalty Kill | 77.1 (28th) | 81.0 (17th) |
| Shots For/Shots Against | 30.2 (25th) 31.2 (11th) |
30.6 (23rd) 32.1 (21st) |
| Ice Time Leaders | Karlsson- 26:21 Ceci- 22:48 Stone- 20:54 |
Green- 22:39 Daley- 20:36 Larkin- 19:51 |
| Leading Scorers | Stone- 34 pts Karlsson- 25 pts Hoffman- 24 pts |
Larkin- 32 pts Zetterberg- 27 pts Mantha- 24 pts |
| Chance of Winning Draft Lottery | 9.9% | 6.1% |
